From Versatility, Victory

From mountain stages to Mulsanne, Vic Elford had 'em covered

Feature Article from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

It was perhaps almost poetic that Vic Elford, esteemed as an endurance driver but honed on everything from production-spec rally cars to Formula 1 and the monsters of the Can-Am series, drove his final competitive laps a decade ago during a Can-Am reunion, where the antics of some skill-challenged amateurs left him unnerved as they attempted to master some of history's most unforgiving race cars. Since then, Elford--the only driver to win the Monte Carlo rally and then drive in the Monaco Grand Prix during successive years--has enjoyed his status as an elder statesman of a grand era in European motorsports, lauded for his exploits in both rallying and racing, named as one of the Nürburgring's greatest competitors by the late historian Chris Nixon, and made an honorary citizen of the city of Termini Imerese in Sicily for his stirring drives during the Targa Florio.

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Today living on the Atlantic coast of south Florida, having come to the United States while working as director of motorsports for Renault and Jeep, Elford has become a celebrity among owners of Porsches, the cars in which he experienced his greatest glory, frequently tapped as a lecturer and guest driving instructor at Porsche Club of America events. He has more recently completed his autobiography, Vic Elford: Reflections on a Golden Era in Motorsports, released by David Bull Publishing. Photos from Elford's collection, published in the book, are excerpted here, with Elford providing us with fresh interpretations on the events.
During his era, becoming an international professional required rigid focus, innate car-control talent, an ability to block out tragedy and most of all, motor skills that most mortals could never dream of possessing. Elford, who saw his first motor race when his father took him to the British Grand Prix in 1949, told us, "When I was very young, I was also an extremely good soccer player, and I had serious thoughts about becoming a professional. I was what is known today as a striker. One of the other things I certainly would have loved doing is becoming a downhill skier. One of the great things about skiers is, they all have outstanding balance. On skis, I was never fancy, but I never used to fall off.
"I still actively enjoy watching Formula 1, which is unique in being a marriage between extremely high technology and extremely talented drivers, but I believed, and still believe, that the best rally driver in the world is the best driver in the world."
Photo 1
"This photo was taken just moments after the start of Le Mans in 1970. I'm on the inside in the Porsche Salzburg 917L No. 25 that I shared with Kurt Ahrens, and Jo Siffert is on the outside, actually ahead of me, in the John Wyer Porsche 917K No. 20 he shared with Brian Redman, the short-tail model that was new for 1970. Next in line are the No. 6 Ferrari 512S of Nino Vaccarella and the No. 21 917K of Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen. I was on pole with the only long-tail 917 in the race, and this year, it was developed enough to the point where we had about an extra 25 mph on the straights over the 225 mph or so that the 917 had in 1969. I was the first ever to turn a lap of 150 mph in qualifying at Le Mans. The long-tail had the 4.9-liter engine, and on the first lap, we came through Tetre Rouge and all started accelerating down the Mulsanne straight, with Jo in front. About halfway down the straight, there's a kink to the right and two restaurants on the left, one the Les Hunadières café, and the other one whose name I don't remember. Usually, the cars would reach their terminal velocity right about there, but I just kept on going, close to 250 mph at the maximum. By the time we got to the Mulsanne corner, I was practically in a different time zone than the rest of the field. We fell out of the race after the engine failed, but I still managed to set the first-ever 150-mph race lap at Le Mans. I can still remember that going past the cafes, as fast as we were going, we were probably only about 10 feet away from the tables, and I could recognize the people sitting at them."
Photo 2
"My first-ever circuit race in an actual racing car was this Lotus Cortina at the Norisring in 1965; I'm here lapping the Alfa sedan on the inside, passing the big grandstand. The Cortina was owned by a British team that competed in the British Touring Car Championship, owned by John Willment, who was an industrialist; I believe he owned some major construction companies. I knew their team manager, Jeff Uren, fairly well. Even Formula 1 drivers like Jimmy Clark raced touring cars back in those days. I ended up winning the race against a whole horde of BMWs."
Photo 3
"I had joined the Porsche factory team as a rally driver with the 911 in 1967, and in 1968, won the Monte Carlo Rally; here at the finish in Monaco are me, my co-driver David Stone, team member Pauli Toivonen and my great friend Huschke von Hanstein, who was Porsche's team manager at the time. Huschke was always taking photos and movies, and was the ultimate professional in everything he did, so that explains why he's holding what's probably a 16mm movie camera in his hands. One thing you need to understand was that, in 1968, a 911 used in rallies was not that far or much modified from a road car. In those days, any rally car was pretty close to standard. I drove my very first Porsche 911 at the rally in Corsica in 1966, almost 40 years ago, and ever since then, I've always considered the 911 to be the best car in the world, as a road car, a rally car and as a race car."
Photo 4
"I was racing in the 1967 British Touring Car Championship here at Silverstone, on three wheels in the 911, while Paul Hawkins is chasing me on two wheels in the Lotus Cortina. It's now called Porsche Cars Great Britain, but in 1967, the Porsche distributor in England was simply called AFN, with the FN standing for Frazer Nash, the sports car, and the A standing for the Aldington family that owned the business. I had just driven a 911 to third place in the Monte Carlo rally in 1967, and ITV, the Independent British TV network, held the first-ever rallycross event, which they wanted me to do in a Porsche. The Aldingtons provided me with one of their demonstrators, a completely standard road 911, and I ended up winning it, beating all the factory Ford Lotus Cortinas. We were in the British Touring Car Championship because the 911 had these two little seats in back, so the FIA had homologated it as a four-seat touring car. The Aldingtons took this 911, got Stuttgart to prepare the car for racing, and I won this event. I also won the 2-liter category in the championship at the end of the year."
Photo 5
"If it wasn't for British Independent Television, I would not have been at Monte Carlo in 1962, at least not as a driver. I believe this was the first time I entered an international event as a driver. I had been driving the little DKWs in rallies as part of their factory team, and this was right after Marcus Chambers had fired me as a co-driver at BMC, because, he said, he wanted me to go out on my own and become a driver. British Independent Television had entered this Sunbeam Rapier they'd been lent by the factory for reporter Raymond Joss and producer Bill Ward, and they asked me to drive, my first Monte Carlo Rally as a driver. We finished, bearing in mind that my main job was to get the TV crew there with no major exploits, and certainly while having no accidents, so I guess that overall I did a pretty good job. The Rapier handled well and had good power, but when you consider the fact that we had three people in the car, it wasn't really equipped to run up front in the rally."
Photo 6
In 1960, Elford was navigator aboard this Austin-Healey 3000 rally car entered by the BMC factory team, here assaulting the Coupe des Alpes with David Seigle-Morris handling the driving chores. His discipline marking routes would eventually see Elford graduate to a factory driver at Ford and, later, at Porsche.
Photo 7
"In 1969 at Le Mans, in the first of the Porsche 917s, this is almost certainly the left-hander through the Esses, which was pretty fast. There were only two factory 917s in 1969. One of them was Rolf Stommelen's car, a test car that he shared with Kurt Ahrens and that broke after about six hours, just as the engineers had predicted. I was convinced early on, however, that the 917 was a potential winner, and Richard Attwood and I drove the car with kid gloves, and we led for 21 hours until a failed oil seal and broken bellhousing ruined the clutch, putting us out when we were leading by 50 miles. That set up the famous finish where Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver in the John Wyer GT 40 barely beat the Porsche 908 long-tail of Hans Hermann and Gerard Larrousse in what was the closest finish in Le Mans history. When the 917 first arrived, aerodynamics was very much in its infancy.
The long-tail design was very, very fast down the straights but there was not a lot of downforce, so you had to be very, very careful with it in the corners. If you lifted off the throttle, the rear end would come right up. The 908 long-tail was selected by most of the Porsche drivers in 1969, but I insisted on having the 917. I probably should have had a 908, too, but I don't regret it."
Photo 8
"On the start at the Spa 1000 Km in 1971 in the rain, which was typical, entering Eau Rouge for the first time is the Jo Siffert/Derek Bell 917K in the lead, with me following in the Martini Porsche 917K I shared with Gerard Larrousse, and the 917K that was shared by Pedro Rodriguez and Jackie Oliver, which ended up winning the race. The Ferrari 312PB of Jacky Ickx and Clay Reggazoni is next on the inside, possibly wearing the No. 1 because it was the first of the 3.0-liter Ferrari prototypes, with Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep outside in the other Martini Porsche. I had problems with handling all the way through this race, starting with practice, when the car wasn't stable under either braking or acceleration. At one point, the mechanics found a tiny crack in the car's chassis, and they corrected it, but we still had problems and we retired, which was when they found another crack, right at the pickup point for the front suspension. That meant one of the front wheels was moving forward and backward under both acceleration and braking. Since this photo was taken, Eau Rouge has been opened out more, but it was still everything you've heard about it being an extremely fast and difficult corner, even in the dry. Back then, the guardrails were very close to the edge of the road, so there was no runoff, and Eau Rouge was steeply downhill ending with a sweeping left, and then as the track turned to the right, one comes up over a crest and you can't see anything. Those prototypes back then were probably doing 160 or 170 mph through here. Today in Formula 1, with the downforce, the best drivers actually go through it flat out, at 200 mph-plus in the dry, which is mind-boggling to me."
Photo 9
"In 1969, Toyota was seeking to market this car, which was called the Toyota Crown in Japan and Europe, and which did come to the United States, where it was called the Toyota Corona. By sheer chance, I had been in Japan where I did a seven-week test of the Toyota 7, which was their unlimited sports car for Group 7 racing, but was simply called the Toyota 7. At that time, both Toyota and Nissan, were thinking about coming to the Can-Am series. The Toyota engineers came up to me and said extremely politely, 'Would you do us a little favor?' They said they had a rally car, the Crown, and they asked me if I would drive it and tell them what I thought of it. We were at the Toyota test track, where they also had a rally-type dirt track set up for testing. One of the Toyota engineers asked if he could ride with me in the car, and before you knew it, there was a line of engineers who were all waiting for a ride in the car on the test track. They asked me if I would do the Monte Carlo rally in the Crown, and could I win it? I told them it couldn't win but that I could get it into the top 10, which was where I was running when the limited-slip rear axle broke and put us out, so I had completed my side of the bargain on that."
Photo 10
The new, short-tail Porsche 917K had its maiden outing at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1970, which also saw the debut of the new Porsche Salzburg team, with Elford and Kurt Ahrens partnered in this 917K. Their race ended early when Ahrens cut a tire, which shredded as he tried to make it back to the pits, ripping the car's fuel tank apart.
Photo 11
When Jim Hall needed a driver for his wildly innovative Chaparral 2J ground-effect Can-Am car, who could communicate effectively with his engineers, Elford got the call. The unlikely partners became a formidable team and lifelong friends.
Photo 12
"This is the 1969 Targa Florio. It was taken when I was about halfway around the Little Madonie circuit, where you'd climb uphill, around the side of a mountain, and then dive back down. This part of the road now runs underneath an autostrada, at a place called Bivio Polizzi, which basically means a junction in a village called Polizzi. Since it was halfway through the lap, all of the major teams would set up an interim pit area right there. The car is a short-tailed Porsche 907 coupe with a 2.2-liter opposed eight, and I won this race with Umberto Maglioli as my co-driver, despite having lost eighteen minutes on the first of the 10 laps with wheel problems! The 907 later became the 908, with a 3-liter engine that made 375hp, so with the 907's 2.2 engine, we were probably making about 300hp. One reason I won, a journalist later told me, was that I'm blessed with a pretty good photographic memory, especially for roads. From rallies, I was used to working with very good pace notes. I basically knew what was coming all the time, even at night or in bad weather. Before the race, I'd drive the course briskly for a few laps, stop to have a cup of coffee, and then drive it again slowly, talking to myself out loud, sort of committing the course to my mind using imaginary pace notes. Nino Vaccarella, who grew up in Sicily and had driven the Targa Florio many times, told me he thought I was the only driver who totally knew the course, even better than he did."

This article originally appeared in the December, 2006 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.